Underwhelming opening night for the Evil Empire with a 5-5 record, including the PI. I was impressed how easily Millsaps dispatched the speed demons from NCW. The nation's only unbeaten Defiance came real close to a shocking loss at the hands of a simmy, but I've had some good NT runs start with a sputter like that.

The Defiance score is a tad deceptive with the 3-pointer with 1 second left to cut it to one point, but it was definitely closer than expected. Millsaps' margin of victory was impressive. I was surprised to see Dubuque and Newbury both exit in the first round. Rose-Hulman pulled the upset of Louisiana in a game between teams that probably never should have met in Round 1. (RHIT as a 14 seed? You know that's not going to be your average 14....) Don't know if I'll have time to break down each region or not today, but once again, thank you to all four of my picks for getting out of Round 1 and saving me embarrassment.

Posted by spasticity on 10/10/2012 10:11:00 AM (view original):Underwhelming opening night for the Evil Empire with a 5-5 record, including the PI. I was impressed how easily Millsaps dispatched the speed demons from NCW. The nation's only unbeaten Defiance came real close to a shocking loss at the hands of a simmy, but I've had some good NT runs start with a sputter like that.

Shout out to ASC conference mate Howard Payne (aggiegog) for their first round upset. Shocked to see Newbury go down the first round. H-S misses a ton of free throws again in our opening round game. This will be our achilles heel, hopefully later rather than sooner, but sooner wouldn't be unexpected. As if recruiting for all the other ratings wasn't bad enough, focusing on FT shooters will be interesting too.

Midwest — The top four seeds advane to the Sweet 16. JW’s quest for a threepeat contues comfortably with a 14-point win over Whitworth. They could get a test tonight as they face Sewanee, which gave Millsaps its only loss of the seaosn, tonight. Sewanee advanced with a 10-point win over Whittier. On the other half of the bracket, Wentworth made the statement of the night by obliterating NYU 114-66, now they’ll get undefeated Defiance, who continued to flirt with postseason disaster and needed a late rally to come back to defeate Lynchburg by five.

East — Hardin-Simmons rolls on with an 18-point win over St. Joe’s. Now they’ll face a Trinity (TX) team I referred to in the preseason as possibly as good as Millsaps. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, but a 15-point win over Palm Beach Atlantic last night was solid. The bottom half of the bracket has 6-seed Calvin, which pulled the minor 93-85 upset of Vassar last night, going up against Eastbay, less than convincing with an eight-point win over Wooster last night.

South — Millsaps needed a pair of free throws with 3 seconds to play to escape an upset bid by Susquehanna and advance. Now they’ll get one of the tournament’s surprise teams in 12-seed Howard Payne. HP won the battle of double-digit upstarts against Mt. St. Joseph last night by 11 and has scored 90+ in each of the first two rounds. The bottom of the bracket could be one of the night’s more interesting games as Buena Vista, a 7-point winner over Dickinson, hits US Merchant Marines, who won their first two NT games by an average of 20 points after a 21-point blowout of Denison last night.

West — The top half of the bracket is as-expected. Top-seed Rivier rolled Connecticut by 33 and has perhaps the most impressive set of results through the first two rounds. Now they get Texas Lutheran, a 7-point winner over ghost-shipped Martin Luther. The bottom of the bracket looks nothing like it is supposed to. Webster, an 11 seed, knocked off 14-seed Rose-Hulman Tech on an old-fashioned 3-point play with 4 seconds to play, completing a rally from five points down at halftime. Now they get 7-seed Emmanuel, who had a huge win against a Penn St. Altoona team that I thought in the preseason could win it all this year. Emmanuel was down eight at the half, but stormed back to a 62-56 win.

Sewanee is a really nice team. Not sure anyone can beat J & W though... I'll be interested to see what coach madpad does to try and solve the puzzle.

Glad to have escaped with victory over a very soild Susquehanna.

Shocked to see Penn St. Altoona lose. There's no shame in lossing to Emmanuel though. I bet coach frankg wasn't happy to have that match-up it the second round. Those GNE schools can appear under-rated since the conference is so difficult and everyone racks up losses to spas and jack_duck, etc.

im picking my team to make the elite 8 or better next year. i kinda snoozed on tinkering around with their distribution and shot settings and didnt realize i had so many great scoring options on my team. that combined with the fact that they are gonna all be juniors and seniors next year and the athleticism and defense is good and i think they are gonna make a lot of noise. unfortunately i didnt schedule their non con at all so they are pretty much gonna have to run the table :/

Serious diversity in the Elite 8. Only 1 team from the GNE. 2 from the ASC. 1 University. 1 Michigan. 1 Heartland. 1 Iowa ASC. 1 St. Louis! Definitely disappointed not to be among them, but good luck to all.

Midwest — The top two seeds meet for a place in the Final Four. Johnson and Wales advances with a comfortable 14-point win over Sewanee. Defiance knocks off a dangerous-looking Wentworth side to improve to 32-0 on the year. After a couple late-game fades injected some excitement into Defiance’s first two NT games, carl’s crew stays solid over the final 10 minutes to win by 12. Compared to the other regions, it was a pretty calm night in the Midwest.

East — They’ll be talking about the Calvin-CSU, Eastbay game for quite a while out west. Eastbay led by six points with 29 seconds to play, but Grover Ross hit a pair of treys and Dustin Bell added a third with 6 seconds remaining to pull 6-seeded Calvin within a point. Joseph Shaner made one of two free throws with 5 seconds remaining to put Eastbay up 67-65, but a controversial foul whislted on Chris Pittman sent Matthew Callahan to the line for Calvin with no time remaining on the clock. The career 75.6 percent free throw shooter drained both, sending it to OT, where Eastbay never recovered from the shock. How cruel can teh game be? Eastbay ends the year 30-2, both losses coming in overtime. Opposite them will be the region’s top seed Hardin-Simmons, who turned in a workmanlike performance in dispatching Trinity (TX) by 13. While the results haven’t beel blowouts, that’s three straight smooth sailing contests for HS. An aside, Calvin and Hardin-Simmons met in the non-con with HS winning by 14.

South — For the second night out, top seeded Millsaps needed to play the rally card in the second half. Howard Payne, the 11 seed, had Millsaps down 5 at intermission, but couldn’t account for the midgame adjustments made by the 1 seed. Millsaps shot 17-for-32 in the second half and owned a 23-14 edge on the glass in the final 20 minutes. For a spot in the Final Four, they’ll face Buena Vista, who posted a 77-69 win over US Merchant Marines. The formula was simple as Buena Vista held UMMA to 37.3 percent shooting from the floor and forced 20 turnovers. Stiill, it was anyone’s game until an 8-0 Buena Vista run in the final two minutes.

West — The Wild West is at it again, playing the role of bracket buster. Top-seeded Rivier was up by five over 4-seed Texas Lutheran with 1:31 to play, but that lead evaporated when James Hazzard canned a three-pointer from the right wing with 9 seconds remaining. Rivier missed a fadeaway from the low blocks and a subsequent tip attempt in the waning seconds that could have won the game. From there, a clearly tired TL squad played on pure heart and desire, outscoring Rivier 6-2 over the final 59 seconds of overtime for a 76-73 victory. Their reward is a date with upstart 11-seed Webster as mschulte24’s magical postseason run continues. After opening round wins by 6 and 2 points, Webster made it a doubly bad night for the GNE out West with a 78-75 win over Emmanuel. Emmanuel led by nine with less than 8 minutes to play, but Webster took the lead for good on a John Johnson pull up jumper with 1:36 to play as neither team was able to hit many shots from the floor over the final 4 minutes.

Posted by jack_duck on 10/12/2012 10:47:00 AM (view original):Holy crackers! Buena Vista has only 1 senior and he's not even close to being their best player. They may be the odds on favorite to win it all next season.

give me some credit - I called this one! see page three of the thread for my 9/19/12 overview of this team. Hopefully Millsaps can make him wait one more season.

Goat of the night, Thomas Smith, Rivier. 1-6 in 26 minutes, blows a tip in at the buzzer for the win, misses wide open three to tie at the end of overtime. Of course, Rivier missed two other tip ins in the final minutes of regulation too. Heartbreaking for Rivier, but I don't think anyone is feeling bad for the Evil Empire, right?

Jack Garrett's appearance in the national title game turned into an experience he'd rather forget. A blown layup (for the lead) and whistled for the carry with 2 seconds remaining (and down 3...I hope he was looking to dish it off to someone else!) and Defiance, the team that barely escaped round 1, is your undefeated, undisputed national champion, having never led in the second half until 39 seconds remained.